Universal mind

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_mind 

Universal mind or universal consciousness is a metaphysical concept suggesting an underlying essence of all being and becoming in the universe. It includes the being and becoming that occurred in the universe prior to the arising of the concept of "Mind", a term that more appropriately refers to the organic, human, aspect of universal consciousness. It addresses inorganic being and becoming and the interactions that occur in that process without specific reference to the physical and chemical laws that try to describe those interactions. Those interactions have occurred, do occur, and continue to occur. Universal consciousness is the source, ground, basis, that underlies those interactions and the awareness and knowledge they imply.

Introduction

The concept of universal mind was presented by Anaxagoras, a Pre-Socratic philosopher who arrived in Athens some time after 480 BC. He taught that the growth of living things depends on the power of mind within the organisms that enables them to extract nourishment from surrounding substances. For this concept of mind, Anaxagoras was commended by Aristotle. Both Plato and Aristotle, however, objected that his notion of mind did not include a view that mind acts ethically, i.e. acts for the “best interests” of the universe.

The most original aspect of Anaxagoras's system was his doctrine of nous ("mind" or "reason").  A different Greek word, gnó̱si̱ (awareness), better reflects what is observed in the wider world of organic and inorganic being than just the human world. A worm, an amoeba, a bacteria, a raindrop, appears to act with "awareness" (gnó̱si̱) rather than "reason" (nous). Also, these actions would not commonly be referred to as being "reasonable" or "ethical".

In "The Huang Po Doctrine of Universal Mind", originated in around 857 CE, the idea of mind was disconnected from soul in this Buddhist school of thought.

Chu Ch’an says, “Universal mind, therefore, is something to which nothing can be attributed. Being absolute, it is beyond attributes. If for example, it were to be described as infinite, that would exclude from it whatever is finite, but the whole argument of the book is that universal mind is the only reality and that everything we apprehend through our senses, is nothing else but this mind. Even to think of it in terms of existence or non-existence is to misapprehend it entirely.” pp. 8–9 [3]

The term surfaced again in later philosophy, as in the writings of Hegel. - Hegel writes:

¤ 377 The knowledge of Mind is the highest and hardest, just because it is the most 'concrete' of sciences. The significance of that 'absolute' commandment, Know thyself − whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance − is not to promote mere self−knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality − of what is essentially and ultimately true and real − of mind as the true and essential being.” [4]

Descriptions

There are no definitions of the Universal Mind, but two authors within the New Thought movement offer vague descriptions in superlatives such as omnipotence and infinitude.

Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Science of Mind movement:

The Universal Mind contains all knowledge. It is the potential ultimate of all things. To It all things are possible.

New Thought author Charles Haanel said of the universal mind and its relationship to humans:

The Universal Mind, being infinite and omnipotent, has unlimited resources at its command, and when we remember that it is also omnipresent, we cannot escape the conclusion that we must be an expression or manifestation of that Mind. A recognition and understanding of the resources of the subconscious mind will indicate that the only difference between the subconscious and the Universal is one of degree. They differ only as a drop of water differs from the ocean. They are the same in kind and quality, the difference is one of degree only.

The nature of the universal mind is said to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

 

Psychological interpretation

Universal mind may be viewed from a scientific perspective as non-local consciousness. Michael Persinger wrote on non-local consciousness:

[a]s a human being, I am concerned about the illusionary explanations for human consciousness and the future of human existence. Consequently after writing the Neuropsychological Base of God Beliefs (1987), I began the systematic application of complex electromagnetic fields to discern the patterns that will induce experiences (sensed presence) that are attributed to the myriad of ego-alien intrusions which range from gods to aliens. The research is not to demean anyone's religious/mystical experience but instead to determine which portions of the brain or its electromagnetic patterns generate the experience

— Michael Persinger, in Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

The atemporal nature of consciousness is explored by Mansoor Malik and Maria Hipolito. They summarise key theorists on the subject from different ontological perspectives:

Freud emphasized the timelessness of unconscious processes. He showed how unconscious ignores time and temporal progression. For example, in dreams and fantasy where past, present, and future are united in one representation, he showed that certain aspects of psychopathology are also essentially atemporal.

Hameroff (1996) conceptualizes consciousness as successive quantum superposition of the tubulin protein conformations in the brain. He proposes that with each conscious moment, “a new organization of Planck scale geometry is selected irreversibly”. This leads to apparent illusion of time. Thus without consciousness, there would be no time.

A research team in Australia conducted more than 20,000 experiments of universal mind and concluded: "Overwhelming evidence is pointing to the existence of 'supernatural' reality and a universal subconscious mind ( aka 'God' ): Many religious concepts are essentially a science of mind."

Twin study

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study

Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and in content fields, from biology to psychology. Twin studies are part of the broader methodology used in behavior genetics, which uses all data that are genetically informative – siblings studies, adoption studies, pedigree, etc. These studies have been used to track traits ranging from personal behavior to the presentation of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Twins are a valuable source for observation because they allow the study of environmental influence and varying genetic makeup: "identical" or monozygotic (MZ) twins share essentially 100% of their genes, which means that most differences between the twins (such as height, susceptibility to boredom, intelligence, depression, etc.) are due to experiences that one twin has but not the other twin. "Fraternal" or dizygotic (DZ) twins share only about 50% of their genes, the same as any other sibling. Twins also share many aspects of their environment (e.g., uterine environment, parenting style, education, wealth, culture, community) because they are born into the same family. The presence of a given genetic or phenotypic trait in only one member of a pair of twins (called discordance) provides a powerful window into environmental effects on such a trait.

Twins are also useful in showing the importance of the unique environment (specific to one twin or the other) when studying trait presentation. Changes in the unique environment can stem from an event or occurrence that has only affected one twin. This could range from a head injury or a birth defect that one twin has sustained while the other remains healthy.

The classical twin design compares the similarity of monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins. If identical twins are considerably more similar than fraternal twins (which is found for most traits), this implicates that genes play an important role in these traits. By comparing many hundreds of families with twins, researchers can then understand more about the roles of genetic effects, shared environment, and unique environment in shaping behavior.

Modern twin studies have concluded that almost all traits are in part influenced by genetic differences, with some characteristics showing a stronger influence (e.g. height), others an intermediate level (e.g. personality traits) and some more complex heritabilities, with evidence for different genes affecting different aspects of the trait – as in the case of autism. The methodological assumptions on which twin studies are based, however, have been criticized as untenable.

History

Francis Galton laid the foundations of behavior genetics as a branch of science.

Twins have been of interest to scholars since early civilization, including the early physician Hippocrates (5th century BCE), who attributed different diseases in twins to different material circumstances, and the stoic philosopher Posidonius (1st century BCE), who attributed such similarities to shared astrological circumstances. More recent study is from Sir Francis Galton's pioneering use of twins to study the role of genes and environment on human development and behavior. Galton, however, was unaware of the difference between identical and DZ twins.

This factor was still not understood when the first study using psychological tests was conducted by Edward Thorndike (1905) using fifty pairs of twins. This paper was an early statement of the hypothesis that family effects decline with age. His study compared twin pairs age 9–10 and 13–14 to normal siblings born within a few years of one another.

Thorndike incorrectly reasoned that his data supported for there being one, not two, twin types. This mistake was repeated by Ronald Fisher (1919), who argued

The preponderance of twins of like sex, does indeed become a new problem, because it has been formerly believed to be due to the proportion of identical twins. So far as I am aware, however, no attempt has been made to show that twins are sufficiently alike to be regarded as identical really exist in sufficient numbers to explain the proportion of twins of like sex.

An early, and perhaps first, study understanding the distinction is from the German geneticist Hermann Werner Siemens in 1924. Chief among Siemens' innovations was the polysymptomatic similarity diagnosis. This allowed him to account for the oversight that had stumped Fisher, and was a staple in twin research prior to the advent of molecular markers.

Wilhelm Weinberg and colleagues in 1910 used the identical-DZ distinction to calculate respective rates from the ratios of same- and opposite-sex twins in a maternity population. They partitioned co-variation amongst relatives into genetic and environmental elements, anticipating the later work of Fisher and Wright, including the effect of dominance on similarity of relatives, and beginning the first classic-twin studies.

A study conducted by Darrick Antell and Eva Taczanowski found that "twins showing the greatest discrepancies in visible aging signs also had the greatest degree of discordance between personal lifestyle choices and habits", and concluded that "the genetic influences on aging may be highly overrated, with lifestyle choices exerting far more important effects on physical aging."

Examples

Examples of prominent twin studies include the following:

• Maudsley Bipolar Twin Study
• Minnesota Twin Family Study
• Twins Early Development Study

Methods

The power of twin designs arises from the fact that twins may be either monozygotic (identical (MZ): developing from a single fertilized egg and therefore sharing all of their alleles) – or dizygotic (DZ: developing from two fertilized eggs and therefore sharing on average 50% of their polymorphic alleles, the same level of genetic similarity as found in non-twin siblings). These known differences in genetic similarity, together with a testable assumption of equal environments for identical and fraternal twins creates the basis for the twin design for exploring the effects of genetic and environmental variance on a phenotype.

The basic logic of the twin study can be understood with very little mathematics beyond an understanding of the concepts of variance and thence derived correlation.

Classical twin method

Like all behavior genetic research, the classical twin study begins from assessing the variance of a behavior (called a phenotype by geneticists) in a large group, and attempts to estimate how much of this is due to:

• genetic effects (heritability);
• shared environment – events that happen to both twins, affecting them in the same way;
• unshared, or unique, or nonshared environment – events that occur to one twin but not the other, or events that affect either twin in a different way.

Typically these three components are called A (additive genetics) C (common environment) and E (unique environment); hence the acronym ACE. It is also possible to examine non-additive genetics effects (often denoted D for dominance (ADE model); see below for more complex twin designs).

The ACE model indicates what proportion of variance in a trait is heritable, versus the proportion due to shared environment or un-shared environment. Research is carried out using SEM programs such as OpenMx, however the core logic of the twin design is the same, as described below:

Monozygotic (identical – MZ) twins raised in a family share both 100% of their genes, and all of the shared environment. Any differences arising between them in these circumstances are random (unique). The correlation between identical twins provides an estimate of A + C. Dizygotic (DZ) twins also share C, but share on average 50% of their genes: so the correlation between fraternal twins is a direct estimate of ½A+C. If r is correlation, then r_mz and r_dz are simply the correlations of the trait in identical and fraternal twins respectively. For any particular trait, then:

r_mz = A + C

r_dz = ½A + C

A, therefore, is twice the difference between identical and fraternal twin correlations : the additive genetic effect (Falconer's formula). C is simply the MZ correlation minus this estimate of A. The random (unique) factor E is 1 − r_mz: i.e., MZ twins differ due to unique environments only. (Jinks & Fulker, 1970; Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & McGuffin, 2001).

Stated again, the difference between these two sums, then, allows us to solve for A, C, and E. As the difference between the identical and fraternal correlations is due entirely to a halving of the genetic similarity, the additive genetic effect 'A' is simply twice the difference between the identical and fraternal correlations:

A = 2 (r_mz − r_dz)

As the identical correlation reflects the full effect of A and C, E can be estimated by subtracting this correlation from 1

E = 1 − r_mz

Finally, C can be derived:

C = r_mz − A

Modern modeling

Beginning in the 1970s, research transitioned to modeling genetic, environmental effects using maximum likelihood methods (Martin & Eaves, 1977). While computationally much more complex, this approach has numerous benefits rendering it almost universal in current research.

An example structural model (for the heritability of height among Danish males) is shown:

A: ACE model showing raw (non-standardised) variance coefficients

B: ACE model showing standardised variance coefficients

Model A on the left shows the raw variance in height. This is useful as it preserves the absolute effects of genes and environments, and expresses these in natural units, such as mm of height change. Sometimes it is helpful to standardize the parameters, so each is expressed as percentage of total variance. Because we have decomposed variance into A, C, and E, the total variance is simply A + C + E. We can then scale each of the single parameters as a proportion of this total, i.e., Standardised–A = A/(A + C + E). Heritability is the standardised genetic effect.

Model comparison

A principal benefit of modeling is the ability to explicitly compare models: Rather than simply returning a value for each component, the modeler can compute confidence intervals on parameters, but, crucially, can drop and add paths and test the effect via statistics such as the AIC. Thus, for instance to test for predicted effects of family or shared environment on behavior, an AE model can be objectively compared to a full ACE model. For example, we can ask of the figure above for height: Can C (shared environment) be dropped without significant loss of fit? Alternatively, confidence intervals can be calculated for each path.

Multi-group and multivariate modeling

Multivariate modeling can give answers to questions about the genetic relationship between variables that appear independent. For instance: do IQ and long-term memory share genes? Do they share environmental causes? Additional benefits include the ability to deal with interval, threshold, and continuous data, retaining full information from data with missing values, integrating the latent modeling with measured variables, be they measured environments, or, now, measured molecular genetic markers such as SNPs. In addition, models avoid constraint problems in the crude correlation method: all parameters will lie, as they should, between 0–1 (standardized).

Multivariate, and multiple-time wave studies, with measured environment and repeated measures of potentially causal behaviours are now the norm. Examples of these models include extended twin designs, simplex models, and growth-curve models.

SEM programs such as OpenMx and other applications suited to constraints and multiple groups have made the new techniques accessible to reasonably skilled users.

Modeling the environment: MZ discordant designs

As MZ twins share both their genes and their family-level environmental factors, any differences between MZ twins reflect E: the unique environment. Researchers can use this information to understand the environment in powerful ways, allowing epidemiological tests of causality that are otherwise typically confounded by factors such as gene-environment covariance, reverse causation and confounding.

An example of a positive MZ discordant effect is shown below on the left. The twin who scores higher on trait 1 also scores higher on trait 2. This is compatible with a "dose" of trait 1 causing an increase in trait 2. Of course, trait 2 might also be affecting trait 1. Disentangling these two possibilities requires a different design (see below for an example). A null result is incompatible with a causal hypothesis.

A depiction of MZ-discordance data

MZ discordant test of hypothesis that exercise protects against depression

Take for instance the case of an observed link between depression and exercise (See Figure above on right). People who are depressed also reporting doing little physical activity. One might hypothesise that this is a causal link: that "dosing" patients with exercise would raise their mood and protect against depression. The next figure shows what empirical tests of this hypothesis have found: a null result.

Longitudinal discordance designs

A cross-lagged longitudinal MZ discordant twin design. This model can take account of relationships among differences across traits at time one, and then examine the distinct hypotheses that increments in trait1 drive subsequent change in that trait in the future, or, importantly, in other traits.

As may be seen in the next Figure, this design can be extended to multiple measurements, with consequent increase in the kinds of information that one can learn. This is called a cross-lagged model (multiple traits measured over more than one time).

In the longitudinal discordance model, differences between identical twins can be used to take account of relationships among differences across traits at time one (path A), and then examine the distinct hypotheses that increments in trait1 drive subsequent change in that trait in the future (paths B and E), or, importantly, in other traits (paths C & D). In the example, the hypothesis that the observed correlation where depressed persons often also exercise less than average is causal, can be tested. If exercise is protective against depression, then path D should be significant, with a twin who exercises more showing less depression as a consequence.

Assumptions

It can be seen from the modeling above, the main assumption of the twin study is that of equal environments, also known as the equal environments assumption. This assumption has been directly tested. A special case occurs where parents believe their twins to be non-identical when in fact they are genetically identical. Studies of a range of psychological traits indicate that these children remain as concordant as MZ twins raised by parents who treated them as identical.

Molecular genetic methods of heritability estimation have tended to produce lower estimates than classical twin studies, providing evidence that the equal environments assumption of the classic twin design may not be sound. A 2016 study determined that the assumption that the prenatal environment of twins was equal was largely tenable. Researchers continue to debate whether or not the equal environment assumption is valid.

Measured similarity: A direct test of assumptions in twin designs

A particularly powerful technique for testing the twin method was reported by Visscher et al. Instead of using twins, this group took advantage of the fact that while siblings on average share 50% of their genes, the actual gene-sharing for individual sibling pairs varies around this value, essentially creating a continuum of genetic similarity or "twinness" within families. Estimates of heritability based on direct estimates of gene sharing confirm those from the twin method, providing support for the assumptions of the method.

Sex differences

Genetic factors may differ between the sexes, both in gene expression and in the range of gene × environment interactions. Fraternal opposite sex twin pairs are invaluable in explicating these effects.

In an extreme case, a gene may only be expressed in one sex (qualitative sex limitation). More commonly, the effects of gene-alleles may depend on the sex of the individual. A gene might cause a change of 100 g in weight in males, but perhaps 150 g in females – a quantitative gene effect. Such effects are Environments may impact on the ability of genes to express themselves and may do this via sex differences. For instance genes affecting voting behavior would have no effect in females if females are excluded from the vote. More generally, the logic of sex-difference testing can extend to any defined sub-group of individuals. In cases such as these, the correlation for same and opposite sex DZ twins will differ, betraying the effect of the sex difference.

For this reason, it is normal to distinguish three types of fraternal twins. A standard analytic workflow would involve testing for sex-limitation by fitting models to five groups, identical male, identical female, fraternal male, fraternal female, and fraternal opposite sex. Twin modeling thus goes beyond correlation to test causal models involving potential causal variables, such as sex.

Gene × environment interactions

Gene effects may often be dependent on the environment. Such interactions are known as G×E interactions, in which the effects of a gene allele differ across different environments. Simple examples would include situations where a gene multiplies the effect of an environment: perhaps adding 1 inch to height in high nutrient environments, but only half an inch to height in low-nutrient environments. This is seen in different slopes of response to an environment for different genotypes.

Often researchers are interested in changes in heritability under different conditions: In environments where alleles can drive large phenotypic effects (as above), the relative role of genes will increase, corresponding to higher heritability in these environments.

A second effect is G × E correlation, in which certain alleles tend to accompany certain environments. If a gene causes a parent to enjoy reading, then children inheriting this allele are likely to be raised in households with books due to GE correlation: one or both of their parents has the allele and therefore will accumulate a book collection and pass on the book-reading allele. Such effects can be tested by measuring the purported environmental correlate (in this case books in the home) directly.

Often the role of environment seems maximal very early in life, and decreases rapidly after compulsory education begins. This is observed for instance in reading as well as intelligence. This is an example of a G*Age effect and allows an examination of both GE correlations due to parental environments (these are broken up with time), and of G*E correlations caused by individuals actively seeking certain environments.

Norms of reaction

Studies in plants or in animal breeding allow the effects of experimentally randomized genotypes and environment combinations to be measured. By contrast, human studies are typically observational. This may suggest that norms of reaction cannot be evaluated.

As in other fields such as economics and epidemiology, several designs have been developed to capitalise on the ability to use differential gene-sharing, repeated exposures, and measured exposure to environments (such as children social status, chaos in the family, availability and quality of education, nutrition, toxins etc.) to combat this confounding of causes. An inherent appeal of the classic twin design is that it begins to untangle these confounds. For example, in identical and fraternal twins shared environment and genetic effects are not confounded, as they are in non-twin familial studies. Twin studies are thus in part motivated by an attempt to take advantage of the random assortment of genes between members of a family to help understand these correlations.

While the twin study tells us only how genes and families affect behavior within the observed range of environments, and with the caveat that often genes and environments will covary, this is a considerable advance over the alternative, which is no knowledge of the different roles of genes and environment whatsoever. Twin studies are therefore often used as a method of controlling at least one part of this observed variance: Partitioning, for instance, what might previously have been assumed to be family environment into shared environment and additive genetics using the experiment of fully and partly shared genomes in twins.

No single design can address all issues. Additional information is available outside the classic twin design. Adoption designs are a form of natural experiment that tests norms of reaction by placing the same genotype in different environments. Association studies, e.g., allow direct study of allelic effects. Mendelian randomization of alleles also provides opportunities to study the effects of alleles at random with respect to their associated environments and other genes.

Extended twin designs and more complex genetic models

The basic or classical twin-design contains only identical and fraternal twins raised in their biological family. This represents only a sub-set of the possible genetic and environmental relationships. It is fair to say, therefore, that the heritability estimates from twin designs represent a first step in understanding the genetics of behavior.

The variance partitioning of the twin study into additive genetic, shared, and unshared environment is a first approximation to a complete analysis taking into account gene-environment covariance and interaction, as well as other non-additive effects on behavior. The revolution in molecular genetics has provided more effective tools for describing the genome, and many researchers are pursuing molecular genetics in order to directly assess the influence of alleles and environments on traits.

An initial limitation of the twin design is that it does not afford an opportunity to consider both Shared Environment and Non-additive genetic effects simultaneously. This limit can be addressed by including additional siblings to the design.

A second limitation is that gene-environment correlation is not detectable as a distinct effect. Addressing this limit requires incorporating adoption models, or children-of-twins designs, to assess family influences uncorrelated with shared genetic effects.

Continuous variables and ordinal variables

While concordance studies compare traits either present or absent in each twin, correlational studies compare the agreement in continuously varying traits across twins.

Criticism

The twin method has been subject to criticism from statistical genetics, statistics, and psychology, with some researchers, such as Burt & Simons (2014), arguing that conclusions reached via this method are ambiguous or meaningless. Core elements of these criticisms and their rejoinders are listed below.

Criticisms of fundamental assumptions

Critics of twin studies argue that they are based on false or questionable assumptions, including that monozygotic twins share 100% of their genes and the equal environments assumption. On this basis, critics contend that twin studies tend to generate inflated estimates of heritability due to biological confounding factors and consistent underestimation of environmental variance. Other critics take a more moderate stance, arguing that the equal environments assumption is typically inaccurate, but that this inaccuracy tends to have only a modest effect on heritability estimates.

Criticisms of statistical methods

It has been argued that the statistical underpinnings of twin research are invalid. Such statistical critiques argue that heritability estimates used for most twin studies rest on restrictive assumptions that are usually not tested, and if they are, they are often contradicted by the data.

For example, Peter Schonemann has criticized methods for estimating heritability developed in the 1970s. He has also argued that the heritability estimate from a twin study may reflect factors other than shared genes. Using the statistical models published in Loehlin and Nichols (1976), the narrow HR-heritability of responses to the question “did you have your back rubbed” has been shown to work out to .92 heritable for males and .21 heritable for females, and the question “Did you wear sunglasses after dark?” is 130% heritable for males and 103% for females. Critics also contend that the concept of "heritability" estimated in twin studies is merely a statistical abstraction with no relationship to an underlying entity in DNA.

Responses to statistical critiques

Before computers, statisticians used methods that were computationally tractable, at the cost of known limitations. Since the 1980s these approximate statistical methods have been discarded: Modern twin methods based on structural equation modeling are not subject to the limitations and heritability estimates such as those noted above are mathematically impossible. Critically, the newer methods allow for explicit testing of the role of different pathways and incorporation and testing of complex effects.

Sampling: Twins as representative members of the population

Results of twin studies cannot be automatically generalized beyond the population they come from. It is therefore important to understand the particular sample studied, and the nature of twins themselves. Twins are not a random sample of the population, and they differ in their developmental environment. In this sense they are not representative.

For example: Dizygotic (DZ) twin births are affected by many factors. Some women frequently produce more than one egg at each menstrual period and, therefore, are more likely to have twins. This tendency may run in the family either in the mother's or father's side of the family, and often runs through both. Women over the age of 35 are more likely to produce two eggs. Women who have three or more children are also likely to have dizygotic twins. Artificial induction of ovulation and in vitro fertilization-embryo replacement can also give rise to fraternal and identical twins.

Response to representativeness of twins

Twins differ very little from non-twin siblings. Measured studies on the personality and intelligence of twins suggest that they have scores on these traits very similar to those of non-twins (for instance Deary et al. 2006).

Separated twin pairs as representative of other twins

Separated twin pairs, identical or fraternal, are generally separated by adoption. This makes their families of origin non-representative of typical twin families in that they give up their children for adoption. The families they are adopted to are also non-representative of typical twin families in that they are all approved for adoption by children's protection authorities and that a disproportionally large fraction of them have no biological children. Those who volunteer to studies are not even representative of separated twins in general since not all separated twins agree to be part of twin studies.

Detection problems

There can be some issues of undetected behaviors in the case of behaviors that many people keep secret presently or in their earlier lives. They may not be as willing to reveal behaviors that are discriminated against or stigmatized. If environment played no role in the actual behavior, skewed detection would still make it look like it played a role. For environment to appear to have no role in such cases, there would have to be either a counterproductivity of intolerance in the sense of intolerance causing the behavior it is bigoted against, or a flaw in the study that makes the results scientifically useless. Even if environment does play a role, the numbers would still be skewed.

Terminology

Pairwise concordance

For a group of twins, pairwise concordance is defined as C/(C+D), where C is the number of concordant pairs and D is the number of discordant pairs.

For example, a group of 10 twins have been pre-selected to have one affected member (of the pair). During the course of the study four other previously non-affected members become affected, giving a pairwise concordance of 4/(4+6) or 4/10 or 40%.

Probandwise concordance

For a group of twins in which at least one member of each pair is affected, probandwise concordance is a measure of the proportion of twins who have the illness who have an affected twin and can be calculated with the formula of 2C/(2C+D), in which C is the number of concordant pairs and D is the number of discordant pairs.

For example, consider a group of 10 twins that have been pre-selected to have one affected member. During the course of the study, four other previously non-affected members become affected, giving a probandwise concordance of 8/(8+6) or 8/14 or 57%.

Great man theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory 

 

Napoleon, a typical great man, said to have determined the "Napoleonic" era

The great man theory is a 19th-century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes; highly influential and unique individuals who, due to their natural attributes, such as superior intellect, heroic courage, or divine inspiration, have a decisive historical effect. The theory is primarily attributed to the Scottish philosopher and essayist Thomas Carlyle who gave a series of lectures on heroism in 1840, later published as On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History, in which he states:

Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world: the soul of the whole world's history, it may justly be considered, were the history of these.

Overview

Carlyle stated that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men", reflecting his belief that heroes shape history through both their personal attributes and divine inspiration. In his book On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, Carlyle saw history as having turned on the decisions, works, ideas, and characters of "heroes", giving detailed analysis of six types: The hero as divinity (such as Odin), prophet (such as Mohamet), poet (such as Shakespeare), priest (such as Martin Luther), man of letters (such as Rousseau), and king (such as Napoleon). Carlyle also argued that the study of great men was "profitable" to one's own heroic side; that by examining the lives led by such heroes, one could not help but uncover something about one's own true nature.

As Sidney Hook notes, a common misinterpretation of the theory is that "all factors in history, save great men, were inconsequential.", whereas Carlyle is instead claiming that great men are the decisive factor, owing to their unique genius. Hook then goes on to emphasise this uniqueness to illustrate the point: "Genius is not the result of compounding talent. How many battalions are the equivalent of a Napoleon? How many minor poets will give us a Shakespeare? How many run of the mine scientists will do the work of an Einstein?"

American scholar Frederick Adams Woods supported the great man theory in his work The Influence of Monarchs: Steps in a New Science of History. Woods investigated 386 rulers in Western Europe from the 12th century until the French revolution in the late 18th century and their influence on the course of historical events.

This theory is usually contrasted with "history from below", which emphasizes the life of the masses in addition to the leader. An overwhelming wave of smaller events causes certain developments to occur. The Great Man approach to history was most fashionable with professional historians in the 19th century; a popular work of this school is the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911) which contains lengthy and detailed biographies about the great men of history, but very few general or social histories. For example, all information on the post-Roman "Migrations Period" of European History is compiled under the biography of Attila the Hun. This heroic view of history was also strongly endorsed by some philosophers, such as Léon Bloy, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Spengler and Max Weber, but it fell out of favor after World War II.

Hegel, proceeding from providentialist theory, argued that "what is real is reasonable" and World-Historical individuals are World-Spirit's agents. Hegel wrote: "Such are great historical men—whose own particular aims involve those large issues which are the will of the World-Spirit." Thus, according to Hegel, a great man does not create historical reality himself but only uncovers the inevitable future.

In Untimely Meditations, Nietzsche writes that "the goal of humanity lies in its highest specimens".^[11] Although Nietzsche's body of work shows some overlap with Carlyle's line of thought Nietzsche expressly rejected Carlyle's hero cult in Ecce Homo.

Assumptions of the Great Man Theory

This theory rests on two main assumptions, as pointed out by Villanova University:

1. Every great leader is born already possessing certain traits that will enable them to rise and lead, on instinct
2. The need for them has to be great for these traits to then arise, allowing them to lead

This theory, and history, claims these great leaders as heroes that were able to rise against the odds to defeat rivals, while inspiring followers along the way. Theorists say that these leaders were then born with a specific set of traits and attributes that make them ideal candidates for leadership and roles of authority and power. This theory relies then heavily on born rather than made, nature rather than nurture and cultivates the idea that those in power deserve to lead and shouldn't be questioned because they have the unique traits that make them suited for the position.

Responses

Herbert Spencer was a contemporary critic of Carlyle's great man theory.

Herbert Spencer's criticism

One of the most forceful critics of Carlyle's formulation of the great man theory was Herbert Spencer, who believed that attributing historical events to the decisions of individuals was an unscientific position. He believed that the men Carlyle called "great men" were merely products of their social environment:

You must admit that the genesis of a great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown. ... Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.

— Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology

William James' defence

William James was a 19th-century philosopher and psychologist.

William James, in his 1880 lecture "Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment", published in the Atlantic Monthly, forcefully defended Carlyle and refuted Spencer, condemning what James viewed as an "impudent", "vague", and "dogmatic" argument.

If anything is humanly certain it is that the great man's society, properly so called, does not make him before he can remake it ... The mutations of societies, then, from generation to generation, are in the main due directly or indirectly to the acts or the examples of individuals whose genius was so adapted to the receptivities of the moment, or whose accidental position of authority was so critical that they became ferments, initiators of movements, setters of precedent or fashion, centers of corruption, or destroyers of other persons, whose gifts, had they had free play, would have led society in another direction.

James' defence of the great man theory can be summarised as follows: The unique physiological nature of the individual is the deciding factor in making the great man, who, in turn, is the deciding factor in changing his environment in a unique way, without which the new environment would not have come to be, wherein the extent and nature of this change is also dependent on the reception of the environment to this new stimulus. To begin his argument, he first sardonically claims that these inherent physiological qualities have as much to do with "social, political, geographical [and] anthropological conditions" as the "conditions of the crater of Vesuvius has to do with the flickering of this gas by which I write". He then illustrates his argument by considering the myriad genetic variations that can occur in the earliest stages of sexual reproduction:

Now, when the result is the tendency of an ovum, itself invisible to the naked eye, to tip towards this direction or that in its further evolution, - to bring forth a genius or a dunce, even as the rain-drop passes east or west of the pebble, - is it not obvious that the deflecting cause must lie in a region so recondite and minute, must be such a ferment of a ferment, an infinitesimal of so high an order, that surmise itself may never succeed even in attempting to frame an image of it?

James argues that genetic anomalies in the brains of these great men are the decisive factor by introducing an original influence into their environment. They might therefore offer original ideas, discoveries, inventions and perspectives which "would not, in the mind of another individual, have engendered just that conclusion ... It flashes out of one brain, and no other, because the instability of that brain is such as to tip and upset itself in just that particular direction." James describes the manifestations of these unique physiological qualities as follows:

[T]he spontaneous upsettings of brains this way and that at particular moments into particular ideas and combinations are matched by their equally spontaneous permanent tiltings or saggings towards determinate directions. The humorous bent is quite characteristic; the sentimental one equally so. And the personal tone of each mind, which makes it more alive to certain impressions, more open to certain reasons, is equally the result of that invisible and imaginable play of the forces of growth within the nervous system which, [irresponsive] to the environment, makes the brain peculiarly apt to function in a certain way.

James then argues that these spontaneous variations of genius, i.e. the great men, which are causally independent of their social environment, subsequently influence that environment which in turn will either preserve or destroy the newly encountered variations in a form of evolutionary selection. If the great man is preserved then the environment is changed by his influence in "an entirely original and peculiar way. He acts as a ferment, and changes its constitution, just as the advent of a new zoological species changes the faunal and floral equilibrium of the region in which it appears." Each ferment, each great man, exerts a new influence on their environment which is either embraced or rejected and if embraced will in turn shape the crucible for the selection process of future geniuses.

The products of the mind with the determined æsthetic bent please or displease the community. We adopt Wordsworth, and grow unsentimental and serene. We are fascinated by Schopenhauer, and learn from him the true luxury of woe. The adopted bent becomes a ferment in the community, and alters its tone. The alteration may be a benefit or a misfortune, for it is (pace Mr. Allen) a differentiation from within, which has to run the gauntlet of the larger environment's selective power.

If you remove these geniuses "or alter their idiosyncrasies", then what "increasing uniformities will the environment show? We defy Mr. Spencer or any one else to reply." For James, then, there are two distinct factors that cause social evolution:

1. The individual, who is unique in his "physiological and infra-social forces, but bearing all the power of initiative and origination in his hands" and
2. The social environment of the individual, "with its power of adopting or rejecting both him and his gifts".

He thus concludes: "Both factors are essential to change. The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community."

James asserts that Spencer's view, conversely, ignores the influence of that impulse and

denies the vital importance of individual initiative, is, then, an utterly vague and unscientific conception, a lapse from modern scientific determinism into the most ancient oriental fatalism. The lesson of the analysis that we have made (even on the completely deterministic hypothesis with which we started) forms an appeal of the most stimulating sort to the energy of the individual ... It is folly, then, to speak of the "laws of history" as of something inevitable, which science has only to discover, and whose consequences any one can then foretell but do nothing to alter or avert. Why, the very laws of physics are conditional, and deal with ifs. The physicist does not say, "The water will boil anyhow"; he only says it will boil if a fire is kindled beneath it. And so the utmost the student of sociology can ever predict is that if a genius of a certain sort show the way, society will be sure to follow. It might long ago have been predicted with great confidence that both Italy and Germany would reach a stable unity if some one could but succeed in starting the process. It could not have been predicted, however, that the modus operandi in each case would be subordination to a paramount state rather than federation, because no historian could have calculated the freaks of birth and fortune which gave at the same moment such positions of authority to three such peculiar individuals as Napoleon III, Bismarck, and Cavour.

Other responses

Tolstoy's War and Peace features criticism of Great Man Theories as a recurring theme in the philosophical digressions. According to Tolstoy, the significance of great individuals is imaginary; as a matter of fact they are only history's slaves realizing the decree of Providence.

Among modern critics of the theory, Sidney Hook is supportive of the idea; he gives credit to those who shape events through their actions, and his book The Hero in History is devoted to the role of the hero and in history and influence of the outstanding persons.

In the introduction to a new edition of On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History, David R. Sorensen notes the modern decline in support for Carlyle's theory in particular but also for "heroic distinction" in general. He cites Robert Faulkner as an exception, a proponent of Aristotelian magnanimity who in his book The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics, criticises the political bias in discussions on greatness and heroism, stating: "the new liberalism’s antipathy to superior statesmen and to human excellence is peculiarly zealous, parochial, and antiphilosophic."

Before the 19th-century, Pascal begins his Three Discourses on the Condition of the Great (written it seems for a young duke) by telling the story of a castaway on an island whose inhabitants take him for their missing king. He defends in his parable of the shipwrecked king, that the legitimacy of the greatness of great men is fundamentally custom and chance. A coincidence that gives birth to him in the right place with noble parents and arbitrary custom deciding, for example, on an unequal distribution of wealth in favor of the nobles.

Cult of personality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality 

 

Soviet poster featuring Stalin, Soviet Azerbaijan, 1938

A cult of personality, or cult of the leader, arises when a country's regime – or, more rarely, an individual – uses the techniques of mass media, propaganda, the big lie, spectacle, the arts, patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established by modern social engineering techniques, usually by the state or the party in one-party states and dominant-party states. It is often seen in totalitarian or authoritarian countries.

The term came to prominence in 1956, in Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, given on the final day of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the speech, Khrushchev, who was the First Secretary of the Communist Party – in effect, the leader of the country – criticized the lionization and idealization of Joseph Stalin, and by implication, his Communist contemporary Mao Zedong, as being contrary to Marxist doctrine. The speech was later made public and was part of the "de-Stalinization" process in the Soviet Union.

Background

Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century AD

The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority (auctoritas) of the Roman State. Throughout history, monarchs and other heads of state were often held in enormous reverence and imputed super-human qualities. Through the principle of the divine right of kings, in medieval Europe for example, rulers were said to hold office by the will of God. Ancient Egypt, Imperial Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs, Tibet, Siam (now Thailand), and the Roman Empire are especially noted for redefining monarchs as "god-kings."

The spread of democratic and secular ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. However, the subsequent development of mass media, such as radio, enabled political leaders to project a positive image of themselves onto the masses as never before. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the most notorious personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of political religion, and they may share some traits with other kinds of cult, especially while they are still forming [citation needed].

The term "cult of personality" probably appeared in English around 1800–1850, along with the French and German use. At first it had no political connotations but was instead closely related to the Romantic "cult of genius." The political use of the phrase came first in a letter from Karl Marx to German political worker, Wilhelm Blos, 10 November 1877:

Neither of us cares a straw of popularity. Let me cite one proof of this: such was my aversion to the personality cult [orig. Personenkultus] that at the time of the International, when plagued by numerous moves [...] to accord me public honor, I never allowed one of these to enter the domain of publicity [...]

Characteristics

Ho Chi Minh statue in front of the City Hall of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) in Vietnam

There are various views about what constitutes a cult of personality in a leader. Historian Jan Plamper has written that modern-day personality cults display five characteristics that set them apart from "their predecessors": The cults are secular and "anchored in popular sovereignty"; their objects are all males; they target the entire population, not only the well-to-do or just the ruling class; they use mass media; and they exist where the mass media can be controlled enough to inhibit the introduction of "rival cults."

In his 2013 paper, "What is character and why it really does matter," Thomas A. Wright states, "The cult of personality phenomenon refers to the idealized, even god-like, public image of an individual consciously shaped and molded through constant propaganda and media exposure. As a result, one is able to manipulate others based entirely on the influence of public personality... the cult of personality perspective focuses on the often shallow, external images that many public figures cultivate to create an idealized and heroic image."

Adrian Teodor Popan defines cult of personality as a "quantitatively exaggerated and qualitatively extravagant public demonstration of praise of the leader." He also identifies three causal "necessary, but not sufficient, structural conditions, and a path dependent chain of events which, together, lead to the cult formation: a particular combination of patrimonialism and clientelism, lack of dissidence, and systematic falsification pervading the society’s culture."

The role of mass media

The mass media have played an instrumental role in forging national leaders' cults of personality.

Thomas A. Wright in 2013 reported that "It is becoming evident that the charismatic leader, especially in politics, has increasingly become the product of media and self-exposure." And, focusing on the media in the United States, Robert N. Bellah adds that, "It is hard to determine the extent to which the media reflect the cult of personality in American politics and to what extent they have created it. Surely they did not create it all alone, but just as surely they have contributed to it. In any case, American politics is dominated by the personalities of political leaders to an extent rare in the modern world... in the personalised politics of recent years the 'charisma' of the leader may be almost entirely a product of media exposure."

Purpose

Statue of Mao Zedong in China

Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation and came to be treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future could not occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies, such as those of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. The admiration for Mao Zedong has remained widespread in China. In December 2013, a Global Times poll revealed that over 85% of Chinese viewed Mao's achievements as outweighing his mistakes. Jan Plamper argues while Napoleon III made some innovations it was Benito Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s who originated the model of dictator-as-cult-figure that was emulated by Hitler, Stalin and the others, using the propaganda powers of a totalitarian state.

Pierre du Bois argues that the Stalin cult was elaborately constructed to legitimize his rule. Many deliberate distortions and falsehoods were used. The Kremlin refused access to archival records that might reveal the truth, and key documents were destroyed. Photographs were altered and documents were invented. People who knew Stalin were forced to provide "official" accounts to meet the ideological demands of the cult, especially as Stalin himself presented it in 1938 in Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which became the official history.

Historian David L. Hoffmann states "The Stalin cult was a central element of Stalinism, and as such it was one of the most salient features of Soviet rule... Many scholars of Stalinism cite the cult as integral to Stalin's power or as evidence of Stalin's megalomania."

In Latin America, Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser link the "cult of the leader" to the concept of the caudillo, a strong leader "who exercises a power that is independent of any office and free of any constraint." These populist strongmen are portrayed as "masculine and potentially violent" and enhance their authority through the use of the cult of personality. Mudde and Kaltwasser trace the linkage back to Juan Peron of Argentina.